Fred Jansohn wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to put an image map on a vertical plane and use it for a
> background (sky and clouds).  I tried with a sky sphere first but the
> picture was distorted.  With the plane, I get a whole bunch of little
> pictures (like a composit) instead of one big one.  In the
> documentation, it states that the image map may be scaled and positioned
> on the object but I figure out how to do it.  Is the plane the right
> thing to use for this?

Was that a typo above where you say " but I figure out how to do it" ?
Should it say "but I can't figure out how to do it" ?

An image map is really a poor way to try to get a nice cloudy sky.
I strongly urge you to instead take a look at this on line tutorial
about creating clouds using Pov-Ray :

 http://members.xoom.com/POVRAY3/index2.html

> Also, I first tried to use a .gif format but got an error that said
> interlacing wasn't supported so I had to use a .bmp file.  Could that
> have caused the problem?

It is true you cannot use interlaced gifs with Pov. You could onthe other
hand take it into an image processing program and save
it as a type 89 non-interlaced gif image and have no problems.

The basic syntax for using and scaling an image map is as follows:

plane{x,0
 pigment{
  image_map{gif "image.gif" interpolate 2}
   translate -0.5
   scale<360,280,1> // whatever size you need here to fill the screen
 }
}

> Thanks in advance for your help.
> Fred

 No problem and good luck.

Ken Tyler

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